That vote is in Mississippi, where both national parties have been pouring in big money to win a special Congressional election to fill a seat that should be an easy win for the GOP.

The seat came open earlier this year when then Congressman Roger Wicker was named to the U.S. Senate by Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour.

It was thought that the reliably Republican district - which went for President Bush's re-election with 69% of the vote in 2004 - would be an easy win.

But in the initial primary round, Democrat Travis Childers almost pulled off the upset, but he fell just short of the simple majority needed to avoid a runoff.

Now Childers faces Republican Greg Davis, who had Vice President Cheney fly down on Monday for a get out the vote rally, as GOP strategists try to avoid a third straight special election loss.

"What we need in Washington is a strong conservative congressman from Mississippi -- not another Democrat going to bat for Nancy Pelosi," said Cheney to applause.

The Republicans wrote off the first two special election setbacks in March and May, blaming losses in Louisiana and Illinois on bad candidates.

I don't think you can use that excuse three times in a row.

Making it worse was that those two districts were also reliable GOP seats in the Congress.

After the second loss, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich warned his party not to simply try to win by tying Democrats to Barack Obama and current Speaker Nancy Pelosi, saying the GOP must stand for something.

"The Republican brand has been so badly damaged that if Republicans try to run an anti-Obama, anti-Reverend Wright, or anti-Clinton campaign, they are simply going to fail," Gingrich warned.

The GOP did use ads in Louisiana that hit on the Obama-Pelosi theme. It didn't work.

So, they are trying the same thing again in this Mississippi district.

We'll see if it works this time around.

As all of this is playing out, Democrats are touting new independent polls from Texas and North Carolina, which shows their challengers running neck-and-neck with incumbent GOP Senators from those states.

Republicans are already defending many more open seats in the House and Senate this year and they will be hard pressed to keep most of them.

But if they also have incumbents who are polling under 50% at this time, this could be an ugly election year for the GOP come November.